Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many secondees from which other Ministries of Foreign Affairs his Department has received in each year since 2010.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
Foreign Service Officers from other Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFA) are seconded to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) on agreement between the Directorate, Post and MFA. These secondments are a valuable tool for the FCO to meet objectives and increase ties with partner governments.
There is no centrally held record of each of these secondments since 2010 and to answer this question would incur disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what the cost was of his Department's Black and Minority Ethnic campaign.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) spent £21,968 on the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Campaign in the financial year 2013-14, excluding staff costs. We expect to spend a further £20,000 in financial Year 2014-2015.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion for all its employees. Further diversity and equality information is available from the FCO's Diversity and Equality Report.
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many individuals in his Department have participated in (a) Disability awareness and (b) Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender training in each year since 2010.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO) Disability Policy and Support Team arrange disability awareness sessions for staff. Between September 2010 and June 2014 we held 205 sessions reaching an estimated 2,460 staff as follows:
Year Sessions/Staff
2010 12/ 144
2011 68/ 816
2012 61/ 732
2013 50/ 600
2014 14/ 168
The Civil Service Learning (CSL) Disability Awareness and their Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) awareness e-learning courses were made available from February 2013 and April 2013 respectively. Based on those staff completing evaluation records at least 142 staff have competed these so far as follows:
Disability Awareness e-learning: 2013 – 51; January to 10 July 2014 - 30.
LGBT Awareness e-learning: 2013 – 28; January to 10 July 2014 - 33.
FCO staff associations for people with disabilities (ENABLE) and LGBT staff (FLAGG) also hold regular awareness raising sessions and external speaker events each year, across a range of topics, that all staff are welcome to attend. Further information on FCO initiatives to promote diversity and equality information is available in the FCO's Diversity and Equality Report.
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what professional courses civil servants in his Department have attended since 2010; and how many officials attended each such course.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
I refer the hon member to the answer given by my rt hon friend, the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Hugh Robertson), Official Record 14 July 2014 : Column 483W.
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy that appropriate information about parents is included on children's passports and collected to reduce difficulties at border control for children whose surnames differ from their parents' surnames.
Answered by James Brokenshire
There are no plans to use the passport to identify parental relationships as
this would change the fundamental purpose of the document which is for
travel. Guidance on children travelling to the UK, including children
travelling with a parent who may have a different family name to the child, can
be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/children-travelling-to-the-uk
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if her Department will amend the official observations section of children's passports to allow a note when a holder's parent has a different surname to that of the child.
Answered by James Brokenshire
There are no plans to use the passport to identify parental relationships as
this would change the fundamental purpose of the document which is for
travel. Guidance on children travelling to the UK, including children
travelling with a parent who may have a different family name to the child, can
be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/children-travelling-to-the-uk
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much has been spent on the GREAT campaign in each country in each year since the campaign's launch.
Answered by Lord Swire
From February 2012 to March 2013 the total budget for the GREAT Britain Campaign was £37m. This was split predominantly between the following 10 markets.
Brazil, India, China, Hong Kong, US, Australia, Canada, Japan, France and Germany
For April 2013 to March 2014 the total budget was £30m across 12 markets:- China, Hong Kong, India, Brazil, France, Germany, Turkey, South Korea, US, Mexico, Russia, Indonesia.
April 2014 to March 2015 the total budget will be £46.5m across 13 markets:- China, Hong Kong, India, Brazil, US, Gulf, France, Germany, Turkey, South Korea, Indonesia, Mexico, Emerging Europe (Poland/Czech Republic/Hungary/Romania/Slovakia)
Because of the way the campaign's finances were organised, a breakdown of expenditure by country is not available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many complaints of sexual harassment in his Department have been (a) formally reported and (b) upheld in each year since 2010.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
Bullying or harassment is never tolerated in the department and any reported incidents are investigated as a priority. There have been 3 sexual harassment complaints made by FCO employees against other employees since 2010. Of these, 2 complaints have been upheld. The breakdown of cases by year is as follows:
• 2010 – 0
• 2011 – 0
• 2012 – 1 (not upheld)
• 2013 – 2
• 2014 – 0 </form>
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will estimate the number of pensioners that would be lifted out of poverty if take-up of means-tested benefits was 100 per cent.
Answered by Steve Webb
An up-to-date estimate of the number of pensioners that would be lifted out of poverty if take-up of means-tested benefits was 100 per cent is not available. The latest estimate available, published in 2011 (PQ 33325, Official Report, 13 January 2011, column 429W), showed that an estimated 600,000 pensioners would be lifted out of poverty if take-up of means-tested benefits was 100 per cent. It should be noted, however, that given that there have been changes to the policy context, the level of pensioner poverty, and in the wider economy over the period, this figure is likely to have changed since then.
Asked by: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much his Department has spent from the Conflict Pool in each country in each year since its launch.
Answered by Mark Simmonds
The tri-departmental Conflict Pool in its current form was created in 2010. The Conflict Pool is managed on a regional programme basis. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has funded projects in all of the Conflict Pool's five regional programmes: in Afghanistan; in Africa where activity has included work in Nigeria, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya; in the Middle East and North Africa including projects in Syria, Libya, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories; in South Asia where activity has mostly been in Pakistan; and activity through the Wider Europe programme in the Western Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Activity in all these programmes includes regional, cross-border and multilateral projects as well as country-specific activity. The FCO also funds activity through the Strengthening Alliances and Partnerships Programme (SAP) supporting international organisations, including the UN and international NGOs, to prevent conflict.
It is therefore not possible to break down spend fully on a country basis. The FCO's spend by programme from FY2009/10 to FY 2013/14 is detailed below:
Africa
2009/10 £11,513,293
2010/11 £10,148,734
2011/12 £23,928,463
2012/13 £22,648,917
2013/14 £24,575,287
Afghanistan
2009/10 £65,015,660
2010/11 £72,260,986
2011/12 £67,391,371
2012/13 £48,274,454
2013/14 £35,123,462
MENA
2009/10 £13,086,773
2010/11 £8,219,371
2011/12 £15,390,246
2012/13 £17,286,896
2013/14 £44,656,803
South Asia
2009/10 £5,162,725
2010/11 £6,886,111
2011/12 £10,048,078
2012/13 £13,382,327
2013/14 £15,238,714
SAP
2009/10 £1,795,450
2010/11 £1,879,215
2011/12 £1,314,659
2012/13 £3,043,310
2013/14 £3,004,862
Wider Europe
2009/10 £22,606,731
2010/11 £9,201,708
2011/12 £8,024,044
2012/13 £11,034,924
2013/14 £15,001,854